Improvement in printing certain textile fabrics and yarns



JOHN LIGHTFOOT, OF LOWER HOUSE, NEAR BURNLEY, ENGLAND.-

IMPROVEMENT IN PRlNTlNG CERTAIN TEXTILE FABRICS AND YARNS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 83,182, dated October 20, 1868. a

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Join: LIGHTFOOT, of Lower House, near Burnley, in the county of Lancaster, England, chemist, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Printing Certain Textile Fabrics and Yarns; and I hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description thereof.

My invention consists in applying indigo preparations, simultaneously with the usual mordants for dyeing, to textile fabrics and yarns, and principally to those made from cotton and linen, the indigo preparations undergoing the usual operations of dyeing and clearing along with the mordants, and the result being that blues, greens, and other shades are produced along with the colors obtained by dyeing mordants with dye-stuffs.

The use of indigotine, combined or mixed with an oxide or salt of tin, for producing blue figures upon cotton or linen fabrics, subsequently raising these colors in an alkaline bath, is well known to calicaprinters, under the name of fast blue, or, when mixed with a salt of lead, under the name of fast green. \Vhen applied in inadder or garancine styles, these colors have been usually blocked into spaces left vacant for them after the pieces have been printed, dyed, cleared, and dried.

From time to time attempts have been made to print, simultaneously with the madder and garaneine mordants, preparations of indigo, and even those named above as fast blue and fast green, so as to save the expense of blocking in these colors after dyeing; but, either from the blues and greens so produced having been dull and wanting in vivacity or from the mordants having been attacked by the alkaline bath used to fix the indigo colors, and the dyed colors thus coming from the bath poor and bare, or from special apparatus having been necessary to print theg-indigo-eolors, these attempts have never met with success, and the simultaneous printing of blue and green with mordants intended for dyeing is still a problem unsolved.

I have succeeded in discovering the reason of the want of success hitherto, and, partly by modifying the indigo preparation and partly by the use of a material not hitherto used in fixing indigo blue and green in juxtaposition with ordinary madder mordants, I am able to produce fine blues and greens, printed at the same time as the ordinary mordants for reds, purples, chocolates, and black, and having with them undergone the processes required to dye and clear these colors.

I make a preparation of indigo fulfilling these conditions by employing much less tin, whether as oxide or in the state of salt, in the process of dissolving the indigo, than has hitherto been used, and also by dispensing with the addition of a salt of tin to the precipitated indigotine, whether this has been made by the aid of oxide or salt of tin, or, as is sometimes the case, by the aid of metallic tin, having discovered that if the tin is in excess of a certain proportion to the indigo, oxide of tin is left in the fiber during the process of fixing the indigo colors and the mordants, and thus, acting itself as a mordant, becomes dyed by the dye-stuff, producing with the indigo compound colors, which, in the ease of blue, are more or less purple and dull, and, in the case of green, are more or less a somber olive.

I prepare a paste or pulp of indigotine and tin by any of the following processes:

I take, of dry indigo, in a ground or powdered state, or in the state usually called indi go-pulp, one and aquarter pound; of protochloride of tin, in crystals, one and a quarter pound, and of caustic soda, at 30 on Twaddells hydrometer, or of caustic potash, at 40 on Twaddells hydrometer, one gallon. I put these materials in a pan, and raise to boil in half an hour, and then add one gallon of boiling water. I prefer now to allow the mixture to become perfectly cold, and pour it into three gallons of cold water, in which I prefer to dissolve eight ounces of sugar, or one pound of treacle, though this addition is not essential. I add to this solution two and a half pints of muriatie acid at 32 of Twaddells hydrometer, or one pint of sulphuric acid of commerce, previously diluted with one pint of water, and allowed to stand till clear, or three quarts of acetic acid at 8 of Twaddells hydrometer.

I can also precipitate the indigotine by a mixture of protochloride of tin solution at 120 of Twaddells hydrometer with any of the acids named, using one-quarter of a pint of tin solution and only half the quantities of the acids given above, this quantity of tin solution being the maximum that I can use when precipitating the indigotine.

Of all these precipitants, I prefer to use acetic acid alone. Instead of using protochloride of tin-crystals in making the indigo solution, I can use protoxide of tin, made by precipitating a solution of protosalt of tin with an alkali, the precipitate being washed with water and filtered to a thick paste, or I can take anhydrous protoxide of tin, made in any convenient way, in all cases taking such a proportion of oxide as shall contain an amount of tin equal to that in one and a quarter pound of crystallized protochloride.

I can also boil the mixture of one and a quarter pound of indigo and one gallon of alkali, as before stated, with metallic tin, in

powder, or granulated, the quantity of the latter being such that, when the boiling is finished and the indigo all dissolved, there shall be metallic tin undissolved.

In all these cases I precipitate the indigotine as previously described. I filter the indigotine-preeipitate through a deep conical filter, so as to leave as small a surface exposed to the air as possible. When filtered, the pulp should measure one gallon or thereabout.

To make a blue color for printing, I take four gallons of indigotine-precipitate and fourteen pounds of gum-senegal, in. powder, stirring until dissolved. (Other suitable thickening substances may be used.) After straining, the color is ready for printing.

To make a green color, I take four and a quarter gallons of indigotine-pulp and eighteen pounds of gum-senegal, in powder, stir till dissolved, and add eleven pounds of nitrate of lead, in powder, and eleven pounds of white acetate of lead, in powder, stir till dissolved, and strain.

Compound colors may be made by mixing the blue and green colors with each other, or with the ordinary mordants for dyeing.

With the blue and green above described and the ordinary ferruginous and aluminous mordants I print cotton and linen fabrics, and, after cooling, hang the pieces'in a room known to printers as an aging-room for one night. I then pass them into a solution of silicate of soda or silicate of potash at 8 of Twaddclls hydrometer, or into a solution of carbonate of potash at 12 of Twaddells hydrometer, to which about one ounce of chalk, in powder, per gallon, may be added, or into a mixture of silicate of soda or silicate of potash at 8 of 'lwaddells hydromcter, with carbonate of potash at12 of Twaddells hydromof madder,

eter. I heat the bath to 90 Fahrenheit, or thereabout, in a cistern fitted with rollers at the top and bottom, and the passage of the pieces may be at the rate of twenty-five yards per minute. On leaving this the pieces must be quickly winced in a pit of cold water, fitted with a reel about four feet above the surface of the water. By this wincing the indigotine attached to the fiber becomes again indigoblue. If green has been printed, I next pass the pieces into a solution of bichromate of potash containing one ounce of the salt per gallon of water, at 100 Fahrenheit, for five minutes. If only blue has been printed along with the mordants this process may be omitted. I next subject the pieces to the operation knownto calico-printers as second dunging, and which consists in making the pieces circulate in a beck, containing cow-dung and water, at a temperature of about 160 Fahrenheit, for from fifteen to twenty minutes. They are then washed with water and dyed with madder, flower of madder, .garancine, extract mixtures of garaneine with sumac and bark, or with either of them, or with cochineal, after which the ordinary process of clearing the. white grounds may be given, preference being given to the chlorid'e-of-limeclearing usually given to garancine colors.

Now, although the proportions above given have been found, by experiment, to be the best for the purpose, they'may be slightly varied without departing from the spirit of my invention, which is to keep the ratio of tin to indigo much lower when making indigotine colors intended for printing along with mordants to be dyed with the dye-stuffs named, or

similar ones, than in the fast blues and greens hitherto in use, and to avoid the use of salt of tin in the printing colors made therefrom; and here let it be observed that I make no claim to making a solution of indigotine in caustic alkali by means of protochloride of tin, or protoxide of tin, except with substantially the proportions givel'l above; and I make no claim to dissolving indigo in caustic alkali by the aid of metallic tin, such solution being well known; but

I claim as novel- 1. The making of blue and green colors from this and the previously-described solutions, in such a manner that the indigotine remains combined or mixed with such a small proportion of tin that none, or nearly none, is fixed in the fiber by the subsequent processes, and consequently that there is no tin-lake found with the dye-stuff, to spoil the purity of the blue and green.

2. I am aware that carbonate of potash has, most probably, been used to fix fast blue and and green made with indigo and tin, but I am not aware that it has been used to fix aluminous and ferruginous mordants at the same time, and I therefore claim the use of carbonate of potash for fixing simultaneously use for this purpose, to whatever manner they may be employed. 1

In testimony iwhereofjI have hereunto set my hand before two subscribing witnesses.

I JOHIlfiJIGHTFOOT. Witnesses:

H. P. BARLow,g:.;,; v

Patent gent, Manchester,

T. E. BARLOWT'E:

Draftsman, M an 071 ester. 

